Thursday, November 16, 2017

CCDD 111617—Reciprocating Arch

Cool Card Design of the Day11/16/2017 - Reciprocating Arch came from thinking about alternatives to treasure tokens that could help you cast spells without the added cost that accelerating your mana necessitates. This idea begat 3 bonus cards.

So for an up-front cost of {2} (and a card), you can play two Mantis Riders on turn 3. Or a Day of Judgment followed by a Vengevine. Reciprocating Arch nets you mana, but doesn't let you play a five-mana creature on turn three or four.

There's an argument for that being okay as an artifact, but it fits
perfectly in red. Red is happy to exchange cards for a one-time mana
boost, and this way we don't have to worry about breaking the game by
accelerating into a three- or five-drop on the first turn.

As the rare version, Infinite Echoes has some of its own quirks, like letting you cast your whole hand if you can line up the mana costs but requiring you to spend your +2 mana the same turn. Both these cards so far intentionally require matching CMCs rather less-than-or-equal to keep maximizing them a very intentional act of deck-building on the player's part.

Reciprocate Mana uses the same free-mana-without-acceleration technology but with actual mana. There are a shocking number of possible templates for these effects. This card doesn't combo with mana rocks like the first two did, but can give you a lot of mana later in the game that you can do anything you want with, except for buying something bigger than you can afford already.

Lava Surge is the least weird looking card to flow from this same idea. It's a traditional ritual except that its mana cost means it's usually useless, but if you've already cast another spell (and thus spent mana, presumably), it's a red Dark Ritual. Memnite makes that as dangerous as DR, but now you've spent two cards to get two mana, which is probably fine everywhere but Storm.

The way I see it, the storm mechanic itself isn't the problem-- there are plenty of other ways to win if you can "go off" with a sequence of spells that nets cards and mana. And several of the cards here make "going off" a lot easier.

Reciprocate Mana is arguably better than High Tide, which sees Legacy play. Lava Surge is usually a red Dark Ritual in most decks that want it-- again very Legacy relevant. Infinite Echoes is less broken than I initially read it to be (I thought you could ritual and then use the ritual mana to cast it), but it still seems too easy to abuse on turn 2 or 3 in a deck with rituals and cheap card draw.

Resonant Echoes RInstantChoose target spell you control. This turn, you can cast a number of spells equal to that spell's converted mana cost that each have the same converted mana cost as the chosen spell without paying their mana costs.

Seems like we need something opposite from what we've got now in supplemental products, where the cards can't be played in Standard but can be played in Vintage. Designs like these could be totally safe in Standard if we didn't have to worry about, y'know, every card ever printed.

I like Reciprocating Arch, but it says "restrict the types" to me. This could have more colors for commander, but I could see this in a preconstructed deck, esp. say, one with soulshift and a bunch of 6-drop spirits.

Keeper of the Arch 2GLegendary Creature - Spirit ShamanWhen a creature you control enters the battlefield, you may reveal another creature card from your hand with the same converted mana cost. If you do, sacrifice CARDNAME and put that creature onto the battlefield.3/2

Yeah, I like this, although I don't think you'd need to sacrifice it. Just avoid totally off:

Keeper of the Twins 2GCreature - Spirit ShamanWhenever you cast a creature spell, you may reveal another creature card from your hand with the same converted mana cost. If you do, put that creature card onto the battlefield.3/2

Reciprocating Arch and Infinite Echoes are quite cool. Infinite Echoes is probably too strong even with just infinite divinations though. I think I'd like the Arch better as a colored enchantment and stick with that.

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We met as competitors and collaborators in the second Great Designer Search. After the contest was over, we decided we still had things to say about designing Magic: the Gathering. So we started a blog.